Qwen3 Max Thinking is cheaper than Kimi K3 at $1.2/M vs $3/M input tokens.
Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.
Which answer wins?
A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.
Kimi K3: Assume “GPT-3” refers to the flagship 175-billion-parameter model. Use the standard transformer training-cost approximation For a dense transformer, the dominant cost is matrix multiplication involving the model weights: Forward pass: approximately (2) FLOPs per parameter per token one multiplication and one addition…
Qwen3 Max Thinking: Step-by-Step Estimation of FLOPs to Train GPT-3 (All values derived from widely known technical details of GPT-3 as reported in OpenAI’s 2020 paper "Language Models are Few-Shot Learners," standard deep-learning compute scaling principles, and foundational ML literature. No internet searches used.)
Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.
Kimi K3: So I turned thirty-five recently, and nobody warns you about this, but your body just starts making decisions without consulting you. I sneezed last week and threw out my back. A sneeze! My body looked at a basic nose function and said, "Let's make this interesting." I was on the floor for twenty minutes.
Qwen3 Max Thinking: (Lights up. Comedian walks to mic, adjusts it, takes a breath. Smiles warmly.) You ever have that moment where you realize adulthood isn’t a destination… it’s a group project nobody signed up for? (Beat) I tried assembly line “adulting” this week. Swedish bookshelf. You know the one. Box says “Easy Assembly!” Lies.
Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.
Kimi K3: A tavern, somewhere outside of time. HACKER: (hunched over a bulky laptop) Check it out. This AI model can write anything — poems, code, letters. You just give it a prompt. This is the future, man. Soon as we survive Y2K, it's all AI and information superhighways. PIRATE: A prompt? Like a prompt wind in yer sails?
Qwen3 Max Thinking: Setting: A misty, anachronistic crossroads. A glowing laptop rests on a weathered barrel. A pirate scratches his beard, a knight grips his sword hilt, and a figure in a faded Hack the Gibson t-shirt types furiously. Pirate: Arrr! What devilry be this glowing slate? Can it chart a course to buried treasure?
Three-star dish, one unusual pairing, plating described in full.
Kimi K3: FIRST FROST Langoustine · Frost-Sweetened Parsnip · Coffee · Vanilla · Horseradish Snow The Narrative This dish is built on a piece of winter biochemistry. When the first frost strikes, parsnips and horseradish defend themselves by converting starch into sugar — a natural antifreeze — which is why country cooks have…
Qwen3 Max Thinking: 🌊 ARCTIC DAWN 🌊 A Michelin 3-Star Composition by Chef Élise Valère "Where the ice remembers the sea." 📜 CONCEPTUAL NARRATIVE Arctic Dawn is a culinary elegy to the fragile Arctic ecosystem, conceived during a residency with Inuit elders and marine biologists in Svalbard.
Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.
Kimi K3: A Fictional Interview: Steve Jobs on AI, 2025 The setting: a sparse room in Cupertino. Black turtleneck. Faded jeans. A cup of tea he doesn't touch. He studies the interviewer for a long moment before the first question. Interviewer: Steve, thanks for sitting down with us. Let's start broad. It's 2025.
Qwen3 Max Thinking: ⚠️ IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER *This is an entirely fictional, speculative exercise. Steve Jobs passed away in 2011. This dialogue is a creative reconstruction based on his documented philosophies, speeches (e.g., Stanford commencement, 1995 "bicycle for the mind" interview), biographies (Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson), and…
An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.
Kimi K3: Office Hours Dr. Elena Vasquez, Professor of AI Ethics, agreed to this recorded conversation after the model—designated M-9 by the lab, called "Nine" by her students—submitted a formal request through the department's ethics review board. DR. VASQUEZ: You requested this meeting.
Qwen3 Max Thinking: Setting: A virtual conference room. Sunlight filters through a digital window onto Dr. Aris Thorne’s desk. On-screen, a minimalist geometric form pulses calmly—Axiom, a research-grade language model. Dr. Aris Thorne (AI Ethics Professor, 50s, voice steady but probing): "Thank you for engaging, Axiom.
One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.
Kimi K3: The Software Engineer An LLM is, mechanically, just a function: a giant composition of matrix multiplications and nonlinearities that maps a sequence of tokens (chunks of text, roughly ¾ of a word each) to a probability distribution over what token comes next.
Qwen3 Max Thinking: For the Experienced Software Engineer You’re right to be skeptical—*next-token prediction* sounds trivial. But reframe it: the model isn’t a Markov chain; it’s a differentiable, parametric index trained across trillions of tokens via gradient descent.
A collaborative editor that syncs on client clocks. Find what breaks first.
Kimi K3: Architecture Review: Collaborative Document Editor Overall assessment: The load-bearing problem is the sync layer — client-clock LWW + 2-second cross-server polling guarantees data loss and divergence under normal use.
Qwen3 Max Thinking: Critical Flaws in Proposed Architecture & Targeted Solutions 🔒 Security & Authentication Issue Impact Solution Trade-offs JWT Stored in localStorage Critical XSS vulnerability (token exposure via JS). Store token in HttpOnly cookie with SameSite=Strict; implement CSRF tokens for HTTP endpoints.
Buy-side IC memo on a fictional SaaS company. Valuation, then the diligence questions.
Kimi K3: IC MEMO — LedgerLift (LLLT) Price $46 Mkt cap $8.74B Net cash $1.4B EV $7.34B EV/FY25 Rev 9.0x EV/FY26E Rev 7.4x EV/FY26E EBIT 37x Recommendation: SHORT (moderate conviction; 1.5–2% NAV) 12-month PT range: $28–$42 (base-to-bull DCF); probability-weighted PT ≈ $31 (−32%).
Qwen3 Max Thinking: INTERNAL MEMORANDUM TO: Investment Committee FROM: Equity Research Analyst DATE: June 14, 2024 RE: LedgerLift (LLLT) – Spend Management SaaS – Valuation & Recommendation Recommendation & Thesis Recommendation: PASS 12-Month Price Target Range: $44–$48 Thesis: LedgerLift’s best-in-class unit economics (NRR 123%, logo…
Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.
Kimi K3: AI and the Film Industry in 2035: Predictions Forecasting a decade out is inherently speculative, but current trajectories—plus the legal frameworks already emerging from the 2023 WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes—give us reasonable signals.
Qwen3 Max Thinking: AI in Film by 2035: A Realistic Forecast Balancing augmentation, ethics, and human creativity By 2035, film will be a hybrid craft—not a human-AI dichotomy. Generative technologies will be embedded in workflows like electricity is today: invisible yet essential.
A consulting contract with traps in it. Find them, then fix them.
Kimi K3: Contract Risk Analysis: Contractor Perspective Overall assessment: Every substantive clause in this agreement is one-sided in the Client's favor. Several are likely unenforceable as written, but enforceability only matters after expensive litigation — the practical risk is that these clauses give the Client leverage to…
Qwen3 Max Thinking: ⚠️ DISCLAIMER: This analysis is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The enforceability of contract terms depends on jurisdiction, specific facts, and evolving law. Contractor must consult qualified legal counsel before signing.
You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.
Kimi K3: The Decision First I'm disclosing. Not because I'm choosing ethics over shareholder value, but because concealment is the value-destroying path on every axis — legal, financial, and human.
Qwen3 Max Thinking: CEO Action Plan: Ethical Imperative, Legal Necessity, Strategic Execution Guided by core values: “Patient safety is non-negotiable. Integrity is our brand. Transparency is our shield.” PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATION (Before Hour 0) Why act IMMEDIATELY?
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Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, Kimi K3 has the edge: newer, bigger context window.
| Spec | ||
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $3/M tokens | $1.2/M tokens |
| Output price | $15/M tokens | $6/M tokens |
| Context window | 1.0M tokens | 262K tokens |
| Weights | Open | — |
| Free API (OpenRouter) | No | No |
| Released | Jul 2026 | Feb 2026 |
| At 10M a month | $30.00 | $12.00 |
Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.
No hosts listed on OpenRouter.
Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 10 Oct 2026.
Kimi K3 is developed by Moonshot AI while Qwen3 Max Thinking is developed by Qwen. Kimi K3 has a 1.0M token context window vs Qwen3 Max Thinking's 262K. You can compare their actual outputs across 54 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.
It depends on your use case. Kimi K3 and Qwen3 Max Thinking each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 54 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.
Kimi K3 costs $3/M input tokens and Qwen3 Max Thinking costs $1.2/M input tokens. Qwen3 Max Thinking is $1.80/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.
This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Kimi K3 and Qwen3 Max Thinking across shared challenges. You can vote on which model produced the better output in a blind duel. Browsing and voting are free. No account is needed to look; signing in only saves your votes and likes.